


stars

by v3ilfire



Series: i have sprayed you into my eyes [3]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Gen, honestly why aren't there friendship tags, let the LI be friends with the napping twin you assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 23:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: It had been months since Jaal was last locked out of the Pathfinder’s quarters, and though he technically had an override, he was always hesitant to use it. It had been given to him by a flustered Pathfinder for the nights she fell asleep at her workstation and left him crawling back to his lonely bunk in the crew quarters in defeat - not so much for when she and her brother were so absorbed in a project that they couldn’t hear his multiple attempts at knocking. Normally, he would have given up and returned to the tech lab until the two emerged for food, but the closer he and Saoirse became, the more desperate he was to befriend her brother. So, after much fidgeting and deliberation outside her doors, he asked SAM to implement the override.





	stars

**Author's Note:**

> [jean-ralphio voice] AO3! you just missed the CRAZIEST of crazies. siblings. projects. friendship. romance -- ALIENS??? game night. drunken crew members. hiding in the maintenance tunnels. ghost stories.

It had been months since Jaal was last locked out of the Pathfinder’s quarters, and though he _technically_ had an override, he was always hesitant to use it. It had been given to him by a flustered Pathfinder for the nights she fell asleep at her workstation and left him crawling back to his lonely bunk in the crew quarters in defeat - not so much for when she and her brother were so absorbed in a project that they couldn’t hear his multiple attempts at knocking. Normally, he would have given up and returned to the tech lab until the two emerged for food, but the closer he and Saoirse became, the more desperate he was to befriend her brother. So, after much fidgeting and deliberation outside her doors, he asked SAM to implement the override.

He barely said hello when Saoirse practically fell over herself to shut down whatever the twins were up to on the planetary holo, leaving Aisleigh completely frozen. Ever so slowly, he turned his head towards his sister, eyes wide with an outrage he was trying to actively subdue.  
“That _better_ have save--”  
“Jaal!” Saoirse yelled, a little too loud and a little too frantic, but at least appropriately joyous. He would have been delighted at the attention if it wasn’t so _suspiciously_ out of character.  
“Have I interrupted something?”  
“Yes. I mean no! No. I mean, _yes_ , but it’s fine. Is everything okay, or --”  
“Everything is _wonderful_ , darling one. I only came to say hello to Aisleigh before Doctor Carlyle takes him back to the Nexus.”

Aisleigh twisted back to wave at Jaal, though his expression was sour. “Come to say hello, or gloat about kicking my ass in _Battlefleet_ ?”  
“Both.”    
“I blame _you_ ,” he told Saoirse, and then turned his attention to a small window of code he’d pulled up on the holo. “You trained him.” Unphased by her brother’s petty complaints, Saoirse swiped at the holo, her fingertips _just_ short of the simulated screen before she was shoved roughly away. Aisleigh granted her one last glance over his shoulder, though when she gestured sharply at Jaal, he dismissed her with a wave and went right back to work.

The exchange left her unhappy about being on the losing side of their silent argument and clearly at a loss for something to do besides fidget. Defeated, Saoirse stepped off the holo’s platform and found herself stranded in the middle of the room between her already watered plants, filed reports, and neatly made bed. Her lips flattened into a line as she surveyed the room, beaten by her own productivity. She was left with nothing else to do but rock back and forth on her heels.  
“So,” she started, “what, uh. What’s up?”  
“Perhaps I should be asking the two of _you_ about what is up. You are both acting... suspiciously.”  
“Technically nothing is up,” Aisleigh interjected. “We’re on a space station.”

Saoirse feet landed flat on the ground just in time for her to sink her head into her hands and groan. Jaal would have felt bad about walking in on their mystery project if he didn’t find the sloppy cover-up so amusing. “It’s -- you’ll see. It’s nothing,” she said, though when she revealed her face again it was significantly redder than it was before.  
“It’s a _present_ ,” Aisleigh teased. “What are the odds that the two biggest cheeseballs in the universe would find each other in this cluster?”  
“Idiom?” Jaal asked when _cheeseball_ translated literally. It distracted him from actually thinking about the odds of their star-crossed romance (another idiom, but one that made _significantly_ more sense to him).  
“Idiom,” Saoirse confirmed. “Don’t pay him any attention. He’s just mad I threatened to tell Reyes he has a _big dumb crush_ \--”

Aisleigh whirled around sporting a matching shade of flushed, one finger poised to scold. Judging by Saoirse’s grin, she _also_ thought that her brother’s reaction only incriminated him further.  
“I don’t have a _crush_ on him, I haven’t even met the guy.”  
“No, but you get all starry-eyed whenever I talk about him. It counts.”  
Once he’d endured the brunt of this jaw-dropping accusation, the barely-younger Ryder took his glare back to his code and channeled it into furious keystrokes. “Honestly, Jaal deserves better.”

Jaal laughed and took the pause to close the distance between himself and his beloved Pathfinder. Truthfully, he _still_ didn’t know what amount of affection was appropriate to display in front of her brother, but the urge to be near her was a constant he long since grew accustomed to and only grew stronger with time. He played it on the safe side with an arm around her shoulders, a gesture that she answered with a smile that broke as soon as she realized that it was meant to physically brace her for the verbal follow-up.  
“Your sister is… strange,” he said, “But she is kind, and patient. Above all, she is brave when no one else will be, and inquisitive when most are afraid.” Predictably, Saoirse couldn’t maintain eye contact beyond the fifth word out of his mouth. She crossed her arms and tried her best to stop a second, more pervasive smile, but the attempt proved to be futile. However, since she chose to be sneaky about this mystery project, Jaal decided that he had just a _little_ more to share. “Would you like to hear about the moment I fell in love with her, Aisleigh?”

Aisleigh stopped typing for just a moment to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. According to Saoirse, he never stayed angry for long, _especially_ not when there was a tale of romance or grand adventure to be shared. The way his eyes crinkled when he turned his head proved her right.  
“Sure,” he said, trying to hide his enthusiasm. His sister, in the meantime, tried to hide her face. Jaal merely squeezed her tighter and kissed the top of her head.  
“It was on Havarl. She fell from a high ledge into a ravine, and cut her leg. But instead of asking for help, she sat in the water, staring at everything the Angara had lost to time in complete awe. In that moment, I realized that _she_ was the missing part of the man I wanted to be when I was young. Now that I have her, I am… complete.”

The silence in the room quickly made him self-conscious. He had intended to amuse, but had he overshared? Was this level of information not appropriate to divulge to family members? Saoirse was too flustered to say anything in regards to the topic, and Aisleigh simply kept typing. But, just as Jaal was about to apologize, he shut down the screen with a single gesture and turned around.  
“Well, maybe with this, Saoirse can live up to all that.”  
  
Saoirse peeked over the tops of her hands, and as soon as Aisleigh signaled for her to return to the holo, she broke away from Jaal’s grip. Despite their bickering, she threw her arms around him and held him there until he started to squirm and broke away. “Thanks,” she said, nodding at the idling interface.  
“Anything for my favorite sibling,” Aisleigh said, and then winked at Jaal. By the time Saoirse caught on to what had just happened, his hands were firmly in his pocket and he was halfway out the door. “See you both for game night. Team Brodie’s gonna kick your ass.”  
“Do not underestimate Team Kosta. We _will_ redeem ourselves.”  
“Yeah, right, tell that to Saoirse’s tells,” he laughed, cut off by the closing of the doors.

Leaving only two.

When Jaal directed his attention back to Saoirse on the platform, she seemed… nervous, but in a different way than when he first walked in. Still unsure of what to do with her hands, but less frantic.  
“What is this present, exactly?”  
Saoirse had to take a deep breath before she answered. “Well, um. I made you something, and then I messed it up, so I had to have Aisleigh help. I was gonna wait for a better time to show you, but you’re here now and he can’t keep a secret so … just… close your eyes.”

Jaal did as he was instructed, though it was hard to keep still. The fact of the matter was that he loved Saoirse and there was no greater gift than knowing she felt the same, but he also loved surprises and gifts. Better yet, she’d made _this_ one a family affair; something to bind their cobbled-together interspecies clan just a little tighter together. Slowly, they were knitting themselves together into one bizarre, wonderful, _miraculous_ family, and it made his heart _swell_ to think that --

“Okay,” Saoirse sighed. “Open.”

Jaal opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by stars, and they robbed him of whatever breath and thought he had in his possession. Everywhere he looked, there were unfamiliar clusters glimmering in strange configurations and foreign planets spinning slowly around their systems. Somewhere among them, Earth, and Palaven, and Tuchanka, and all the others of all the people he had not yet met. He was … in love, and in awe, and felt so _small_ but somehow so comforted, and so … overwhelmed.

Two and a half million light years away, through a six hundred Earth-year journey, and against all odds, and somehow she came to _him_. That alone was so ...

“It was at the Forge. Not while you were about to get shot in the face, or anything, but after.” Jaal turned his attention back to Saoirse. In the blink of an eye her nerves melted into an ease he rarely saw in her, aglow and at home among her stars. She still couldn’t meet his lovestruck gaze, but _stars_ , was she beautiful, standing there with an unfocused smile. “You laid your life down on the line for your family, and then for _us_. For aliens. And you never faltered. Ever since then, I...”

It took Jaal only four strides to cross half the Milky Way so he could take her in his arms and kiss her, but he knew he’d walk across the entire expanse of the real thing for her if he could; she only had to ask. He would go anywhere in any galaxy just to feel her smile against his lips like she did in that moment, so they could hold each other and feel _safe_ for the rest of their lifetimes and for each one after.  
“You make me not regret coming here,” Saoirse whispered between kisses, and just as the gravity of what she said began to press them both, she ducked to lay her head against his chest.

And then, when she pointed towards Earth, she did not call it home.

**Author's Note:**

> stars as in literally and also as in the exclamation. i'm bad at titles.


End file.
